Getting to Valparaiso

Valparaiso sits about 120 kilometres from Santiago and roughly ninety minutes from its airport, and almost every visitor arrives from one of three directions: the capital, a cruise berth, or the coast road. Here is each route with its arithmetic, and where every tour to valparaiso actually begins.

From Santiago by coach

The cheapest way, and the one Chileans use. Coaches run all day from Terminal Alameda and Terminal Pajaritos to the Terminal Rodoviario on Avenida Pedro Montt at 2860, in the flat part of the city. The journey is about an hour and a half on Ruta 68, the motorway that crosses the coastal range through the Casablanca Valley.

Fares move by operator and by day, and no operator publishes a fixed figure, so we do not quote one. Buy at the terminal or online, and allow for the walk or short taxi from the Rodoviario to the historic quarter, which is about two kilometres.

From Santiago by tour, door to door

The day trips collect you from a hotel or Airbnb in the capital and hand the driving, the parking and the route to somebody else. Ten hours door to door is the standard shape: Viña del Mar first, then roughly three hours in Valparaiso, then a Casablanca Valley tasting on the way home.

The arithmetic is worth doing. A coach each way plus a guided walk on arrival costs less; a day trip costs From $56 and buys the transport, the guide, a cable car ride and a tasting in one booking, with nothing to arrange between them. If you want the city rather than the coast, the coach plus a walking tour gives you more hours in it.

From Santiago airport

Arturo Merino Benítez airport sits on the Santiago side of Ruta 68, which makes it closer to the coast than the city centre is by time. Allow about ninety minutes by road to Valparaiso.

Some of the tours here run that journey as a day out rather than a transfer, in the other direction: they collect you at the cruise terminal in the morning, spend the day in the city and the valley, and set you down at the airport or a Santiago hotel in the evening. If you fly out the day you disembark, that is the booking to look at.

Arriving by cruise ship

Ships berth at the passenger terminal on Errázuriz, beside Muelle Prat. Plaza Sotomayor — where two of the walking tours meet — is a few minutes' walk from the gate, which is why a shore day here needs less logistics than most.

The 2026–27 season runs from 5 October 2026 to 15 April 2027, with 30 calls scheduled across two terminals and nine of them staying at least one night. On eight dates two ships are in at once, and the quarter is noticeably busier by mid-morning: an early start is worth more on those days than a long lunch.

Driving Ruta 68, and where to leave the car

The road is good, tolled and direct, and the last descent into the city gives the view that every photograph is taken from. What follows it is the problem: the hills are a grid of one-way streets barely wide enough for a car, and the flat part has little parking.

Leave the car at a paid lot near Plaza Sotomayor or by the passenger terminal and walk up. Every guided day here handles that for you, which on a first visit is worth more than the fare.

Getting around once you are here

Three systems, all of them part of what UNESCO inscribed. The metro runs along the bay from Puerto station out through Viña del Mar to Limache. The trolleybuses work the flat streets. The ascensores climb between the port and the hills, six of them currently running, El Peral and Reina Victoria from 7am to 9:30pm.

Add taxis and the colectivo shared cars, and nothing in the historic quarter is more than a short ride away. Several tours include the transport fares in their price, which removes the one part of the day that needs small change.

Where each tour actually starts

Four different places, and none of them is a front door. This is every departure point as each operator states it.

See what each one covers

Getting back

The last coaches to Santiago run late in the evening, and the day trips are back in the capital between six and eight. If you are on a ship, work backwards from the all-aboard time rather than the sailing time, and tell your guide what it is: several of the guides here have held a tour for a late berthing, and they can only do that if they know.

Where to check these facts

The routes and the terminals are published by the bodies that run them.

• Puerto Valparaiso — the port and its passenger terminal
• Ilustre Municipalidad de Valparaiso
• The city's tourism portal and its information points
• SERNATUR, the national tourism service

Tours that collect you where you are

Santiago: Valparaiso, Viña del Mar & Casablanca Wine Tour

A small-group day from Santiago with a funicular ride and a Casablanca tasting included.

From $60 per person

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Post Cruise Tour Valparaiso and Winery drop off Airport or Hotel

Off the ship, through the city and a Casablanca winery, ending at a Santiago hotel or the airport.

From $89 per person

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Zapallar Hiking and Bird Watching Penguin Island From Valparaíso

A private coast day with spotting scopes, watching the penguin island from the shore.

From $259 per person (min. 2)

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